Carson never interrupted his guests. He'd ask a question and stay out of the way. He'd only interject to help the conversatio along. He was the absolute master.
Excellent point! I love the intelligent discourse! We could all learn so much from these types of interactions! I miss this greatly. It is absolutely tragic to see where we are now. I feel it will get much worse!
@@romanticwarrior97 All late night shows/hosts on networks are a waist of time now! 2 hr podcast is the only way to have guests communicate with intelligence.
@@lodestarsprayer5660 Yeah, I agree they're all crap now. The only problem with the podcasts is you have to devote a lot of time. I liked back in the day tuning in to late-night for a few laughs before turning in. Carson did a joke about the left, a joke about the right then moved on. Now it's all douche bag hosts with their parties politicos preaching. No thanks.
William F. Buckley's first language was Spanish. His father ran Buckley Oil in Mexico when Buckley was a child. English was his second language. Not too many people know that because he was something of an Irish-Catholic Anglophile. I met him once when he was filming a special edition of FIRING LINE. He had to catch a plane and was under a time limit and yet he re-shot a segment as if he had all the time in the world. Never lost his cool, except with Gore Vidal.
@@Alex_Plante the comment with Chomsky was a joke as it alluded to the Vidal incident which had only happened 2 weeks before, that's why they both laughed as well as the audience.
Many, many years ago Buckley used to come into the Radio Shack store I worked at in CT from time to time. Super-nice guy, friendly and surprisingly down-to-earth.
I often disagreed with Mr. Buckley's opinions, but he supported them with cogent, well reasoned argumentation. In sharp contrast to some of today's "conservatives", who seem to offer only broad, market researched attacks on their opponents, and grade school level insults. What's most discouraging, is that many of their supporters seem to prefer that.
Buckley was a National Treasure. In a way, so was Carson. That he would have a man like Buckley on his show, when he didn't necessarily agree with him on every issue. When you look at the little boys who populate late night TV, Carson's stock goes thru the roof.
@@dspreis I thoroughly enjoyed Carson. I was pointing out how a guy who probably was Leftist in his mindset could have Buckley as a guest without being 'canceled' or any other negativity involved. But in the end, Buckley was far more significant.
The problem with this example is that WFB is not very intelligent. What he says is very simplistic and he usually fails horribly in debate. Don't be fooled by the accent and the manner in which he speaks.
@@juliosanchez95 I agreed to a certain point.Buckley was very intelligent.The problem I had with him,even as a teen,was that he had and held onto a specific viewpoint that he never wavered from even in the face of obvious change that was happening in this country at that time.What I'm saying is that for all his smarts he disappointed me.His beliefs trumped his logic.
Sheer pleasure to hear someone like him with such a command of the English language. I remember him in an interview either Carson or Cavet in which express his worry, that America was becoming like a banana republic. Wonder what he would say about the state of affairs today in which we do resemble a huge banana republic without the bananas.
How about “superordinate” or “hubristic”? There are probably more, but these jumped out at me the 2nd time through. Oh, and Johnny uses the word “modicum” which you don’t hear much on TV anymore either.
It reminds me of a good friend who is known for his vocabulary. For instance, he has used the words "irascible" & "desiccated" (though not during the same day😉). All the best from NY.
It will have been pre-planned, sensing that some people are massively over- impressed by arcane words and would not notice the mediocrity of his thinking.
@@jasonbeard4713 I suggested he run in the presidential election in 1976 and he wrote back, "Thanks but my schedule is full." He ran once for Mayor of NYC and was asked what would be the first thing he would do should he win the election and he said, "Demand a recount."
The problem with this example is that WFB is not very intelligent. What he says is very simplistic and he usually fails horribly in debate. Don't be fooled by the accent and the manner in which he speaks.
@@juliosanchez95 Having just recently read a great deal of Buckley's non-fiction(Speeches and Essays, mainly) I can safely affirm he was indeed an intelligent man, just maybe not a widely-read one. You could definitely tell when he researched and when he didn't./What he knew from what he didn't know.
I remember coming across a roundtable discussion on TV a long time ago. It featured Buckley as well as several other intellectuals. I thought, this is incredible--the amount of intelligence in that room all at once! I think I automatically got smarter just from watching that for a few minutes.
Carson’s versatility never ceased to amaze me. He could amuse you with silly physical comedy as well as entertain you with the most intelligent conversations and here he shows he can keep up with the consummate intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr. When describing the difference between the United States and the Soviet Union, Buckley correctly pointed out that while Johnny Carson’s show had survived fifteen years in the free world, he would only last ten seconds in the communist world. Carson quickly replied “The same holds true for you!” (or words to that effect). I would add that so long as you can voice your opinions openly without having a Vladimir Putin silence you, so long as you can watch anything you want on RU-vid, including a show where a guest openly criticizes communism and defends the United States as a country that fights for freedom, then ours is still a land of the free and it’s a freedom worth fighting for, even worth dying for. I would fight to the death for my right to keep watching The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson!
I considered it a great compliment when my friends at work gave me a William F. Buckley Quote of the Day Calendar for Christmas. They told me I was the only person in the office who could possibly understand his vocabulary. I guess they felt that I was something of a sesquipedalian, which I suppose is better than being an ultracrepidarian.
His arch enemy was a flaming, egotistical, atheist liberal. The type that won't be content until all of his enemies and intellectual challengers were dead. Truman Capote was another of his "enemies".
Loved reading Buckley’s personal memoir Miles Gone By..decades long friendships not limited by political beliefs. My late father enjoyed reading his spy novels.
No I’m glad he’s gone . He doesn’t belong in these decadent times. His philosophy was to always vote for the most viable right wing candidate. Unlike the vulgar crowd, he didn’t cast his vote on appearances.
At 0:40, I'm so glad to have finally stumbled upon an exmaple of Buckley speaking Spanish! He probably practised sesquipedalian loquacity in all his languages.
If i were any further left I'd be in outer space--but I knew Bill and he was kind and gracious to me--who he must have regarded as some species of lunatic :)
@@billhaywood3503 Interesting. I'm a moderate/centrist and I feel it necessary that both sides have their say but to do so with respect. He always struck me as immensely thoughtful and good natured. I also respect that he stayed his course however unpopular with humour and understatement. Today's pundits both left and right just seem to be so petulant and strident. How boring.
He was the seminal political influence of my life. I read all of his books, his columns, watched Firing Line, and read cover to cover the National Review, from the age of 15 years, on. No American conservative theoretician has impacted modern intellectual American culture like Bill Buckley did. Sadly, nowadays he would probably be thought to be too liberal for the MAGA conservatives because he was balanced and polite and civil to his opponents. I would vote MAGA before I would vote progressive, but it saddens me that intellectual conservatives are so ostracized by todays' 'conservatives.' One of his best friends was Kenneth Galbraith, a very liberal American. He was such a wonderful human being.
The Dalai Lama thinks he is a god as well as being an absolute monarch but is just a moronic and bigoted peasant, so the two had a lot in common i guess
I was amazed how he could go toe-to-roe with just about anybody on any subject. A regular walking encyclopedia. The other person was an expert who specialized in that subject yet Buckley knew as much as he did.
Unlike "normal" teen girls, I rabidly loved WFB. I was precocious in language. I found him fascinating. My other hero was Ralph Nadar. (And even stranger, I lived in a small town in Idaho.)
And Carson did prescient inquiries, not like late night network TV talk shows today, where they'd likely ask Mr. Buckley his opinion of Kim Kardashian's cleavage.
@@timdailey2690 This particular apperance you are watching aired Feb 12, 1980 during the election year. Buckley appeared many times on Tonight Show in 66, 70, 72, 80, 82, 85.
Interesting. How many people would have been in the audience? When you say the set was small, I think of it being about 50x20 as the band was there. Is that about right?
Conservatives need another William Buckley. In all the years of watching firing line I don't remember seeing him get overly emotional about anything. He could be talking to the controversial of guests and remain calm and keep the dialogue going. There haven't been many like him. The world today could certainly use someone with his calm and composed demeanor.
And I want to point out the word "dialogue". That's what s lacking today on both sides, in the United States and abroad. It's a shame that it is so hard (not impossible however, except for the social media it seems) to have an intellectual, heated but respectful debate nowadays. It's like two people who happen to disagree on some aspects of life cannot respect each other, let alone be friends. Hopefully this will change and we're living the worst of the times for a civil conversation. Greetings from a great admirer of both Carson and Buckley, from Finland 🇫🇮🇺🇸
I’m definitely left of center but I always loved listening to William F Buckley. In college , I braved the hordes of Young Republicans, to hear him. I especially agreed with his views of the Church and the chaos after Vatican Ii
@Brian Delaney If you are left-wing, you've got serious problems. I've studied politics and history longer than you've been alive, and today's left-wing democrats are totalitarian, authoritarian and anti-liberty. They love weak minded voters like you who are duped and manipulated by bullshit propaganda.
In between the stylistic verbiage, Buckley always had his eye on the ball and understood international politics and knew that the Soviets (and the Chinese and any undemocratic society) were on the wrong side of history. I miss him terribly in these times.
@@gegaoli The subject matter is way too complex for even the off-hand comment I posted. But the quote attributed to Churchill that 'democracy is the worst form of government - except for all the others that have been tried' is applicable here. There are many forms of representative democracy, not limited to the winner-take-all or tyranny of the majority kinds.
@@davemiller4721 My point is that it’s a waste of time and energy debating economic and political systems the elite set up to divide and control. Soon they will try to tear down to creat a new world system that will have total control as it’s objective. While you debate minutiae.
@@gegaoli while you may be correct, it's still fun to debate these topics - we're talking about world powers - and I see you're watching the video as well.
@@davemiller4721 I will concede I still enjoy the art of debate and logical arguments…so I remember the old days fondly which is why I decided to watch this video.
@@lucianopavarotti2843 I've always been interested to know how much trolls get paid. Do you get like free Ramen and stuff or just head pats for being a good boy?
@@GunShark0 Squillions and squillions. As for the patting, i think Buckley would have shared your fascination with it and been very excited at supplying you with some.
It took me awhile to figure out that he had the “mid Atlantic accent” …. prep school elite…. but I thought he was a pretty cool guy overall & it was different times. R.I.P.
Ti be, the way he speaks makes things sound not complicated and esoteric, but clear and articulate. That might be because he was reluctant to 'dumb things down' -- a practice which, in the whole, leaves the conversation more muddled than it began. Cheers! :)
Where are the Buckley's, Vidal's, going to come from in the future? These were people of erudition solely for the sake of erudition....NOT money, which is the fascination of the current culture. Others: George Plimpton, Spalding Grey, Peter Ustinov, Norman Mailer...People that were interesting NOT just because they are rich
I recently saw an episode of Laugh In he had guested - he took questions from the (very liberal) cast and he was actually quite funny. They asked why he agreed to do the show he said that the producer had promised to fly him to LA in a plane with two right wings.
It's interesting how quickly William Buckley grabbed his Linus blanket pencil from Johnny's desk. Years ago, I rarely missed any show that Buckley was on. He was truly a brilliant intellect.
I love seeing William F Buckley! I guess he always holds a pen, pencil or something else. I just adore his opinions and hope to find out more about him.
What strikes me most about this interview is the frank discussion regarding (then) President Carter’s political decisions. Can you imagine such a discussion on the late shows that are on nowadays? We are living in a time where the President’s judgment is beyond reproach within many mainstream media and entertainment outlets, largely due to his political affiliation. We’re left with an overwhelming amount of sycophants and mindless sheep as a result. Who needs objective truth when we have the almighty narrative?
I used to watch his show every week. What a shame that our current political climate is so uncivilized. I think Buckley would be very sad if he could see what things have turned into .
True. I disagreed with most of his views but he was a man of principle, integrity, wit, and a feel for the importance of history. A sharp contrast to one-third of the Republican Party today.
We-and I’m honestly referring to all of us despite what we think our political or cultural allegiances are-are so desperate today for genuinely funny, thought-provoking, and sometimes even tiptoeing over the boundaries of good taste late-night talk shows like Carson had where adults actually behaved like adults. I accept online media’s all but rendered much of it obsolete and answers why late-night TV has transmogrified into these partisan niches, but there was once a time when we could all watch the same thing at the same time on a television set and laugh at the same things.
How do you even start to list what this throwback interview on popular television tells us about our culture today?! In a matter of 30 or so years how is it possible that Western nations have fallen so far? 1. It would be unthinkable to even see someone like Buckley on a popular talk show like Kimmel or Fallon simply because his conservative views would not be allowed. Carson was not exactly conservative and, yet, he can sit here and have share his company. Imagine: being able to disagree with someone and still have a conversation without hating them or outright censoring them! 2. It is amazing to hear the public laugh and actually laugh when Buckley makes a joke. The audience may not be as intelligent as he is, but they are certainly intelligent enough to keep up with him. No general audience today would have the intelligence for this. We are all about the quick (and usually tasteless) gratification that delivers immediate but shallow gratification. 3. That there is actual conversation happening -- real 2-way conversation with real depth on real issues -- would be unthinkable today. It's crazy to watch this and realize that this is our planet only a few years ago.
What’s really sad is that intelligent dialogue is not only lacking on late nite tv but even on 24 hr news! There really is no place to hear this quality of discussion!
The problem with this example is that WFB is not very intelligent. What he says is very simplistic and he usually fails horribly in debate. Don't be fooled by the accent and the manner in which he speaks.
Check out the debate between the internationally known Mr. James Baldwin and Mr. Buckley. Mr. Baldwin received a standing ovation, which was well deserved.
At JFK airport in NewYork, I got to see Mr. Buckley with my mother. My mother adored him. Surprisingly, there he was, alone and holding luggage and sauntering.. She shouted out at him as Mr. Buckley was stridently heading away to the exit of the terminal. She shouted to him "Mr. Buckley. Keep up the good work!" He turned his head toward us, waved and winked. A gentleman
